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Ryu Bateson
Ryu Bateson is a playable character in Breath of Fire II. As with most of his other incarnations, he is the main character of the game. Bio Card Separated from his parents from childhood. This has made him strong. He is blessed with bravery and leadership. He is the leader of adventure. Role in Breath of Fire II Ryu lived with his father and sister until he was six years old, when a tragic event separated them. Following the events of his childhood, he and his best friend Bow took up jobs working as Rangers in HomeTown. As he is a silent protagonist, there isn't much to his personality or character development beyond being the "destined child" prophesied in legend. Biography Similar to most of his other incarnations, Ryu's life is met with tragedy early on in the story. At the tender age of six, Ryu loses his father Ganer and sister Yua. His father was the pastor for a village called Gate. Shortly after Ganer saves Ryu and Yua from a stray monster near the sleeping dragon, he returns to the village with Yua. Before going back to their village, Yua informs Ryu that if he sleeps near the dragon, there's a chance he may see their mother in his dreams as well. Ryu stays behind for a bit to see if Yua was right. If he chooses to close his eyes for a while, he does not see his mother. A demonic eye shows up in his dream instead. When he returns home, much to his surprise, everyone in the village suddenly doesn't recognize him. Instead of greeting him as usual, they scorn and reject him. To make matters worse, his father and sister are nowhere to be seen. The villagers believe Ryu to be an orphan and sends him to see Father Hulk in the local church. Strangely enough, the villagers also claim that Father Hulk has always been the pastor for the village. Ryu then befriends a Grassrunner named Bow (Bosch is the Japanese version) while under the care of Father Hulk. That night, Bow convinces Ryu to run away with him to live in a larger town as thieves. Ryu agrees and the two set off. Unfortunately, they encounter a storm that forces them to take shelter in a nearby cave. It is here where Ryu first encounters the Demon Barubary. Barubary suddenly strikes Bow knocking him unconscious, then makes reference that Ryu is the Destined Child and taunts the boy to show his power. Ryu stands his ground and attempts to fight the large demon, but is no match for the monster. Barubary easily renders Ryu into unconsciousness, further taunting him about opening the gate. As Ryu's vision fades, Barubary seemingly disappears. After this event, Ryu continues to have nightmares of a dark and unfamiliar place where the demon continues to taunt him. Unbeknownst to him, he will be forced to face the demon again one day and fulfill a heavy role where the fate of the world will be his burden. The story jumps ahead to 10 years later. Ryu and Bow have become good friends up to this point, and were often up to mischievous activities as kids. As young adults now however, the duo decided to clean up their lifestyle and became employed as rangers for HomeTown. During his adventures, Ryu will meet and befriend several other characters into joining his party. Additional characters who will join him are Nina, Katt, Rand, Sten, Spar, and Jean. There is another character named Bleu, who is an optional member. He will also gain dragon transformations in his quest to confront evil. Ryu's dragon powers are either obtained or unlocked as the game progresses. This time however, his dragon transformations do not last for the duration of the battle. Instead, it consumes all his AP for a devastating blow with Ryu returning back to human form afterwards. His AP must be refilled again before he can use another dragon attack. Similar to most of his other incarnations, he is a silent protagonist who will only speak through player dialog options. Contrary to this, a flashback shows that Ryu normally spoke when he was a child. Near the end of the story, Ryu gains the dragon clan's power called Anfini. This power is latent until after Deathevan kills his friends during their confrontation. At the story's climax, Ryu uses Anfini to restore his fallen comrades who return to fight by his side. The combined might of Ryu and his friends banishes the demonic lord back into the abyss. After the banishment of Deathevan, Ryu and his party journeys back to Dragnier before heading up to the surface. Upon arriving back on the surface, his party praises him for his courage and accomplishments. In a fit of relief and joy, his friends wanders off to the nearby town while Ryu stays behind to ponder his thoughts. During this moment, he realizes that he must take his mother's place and become the next guardian to the demon gate. What happens from here on is determined whether Ganer was saved or not. If Ganer was killed, Ryu transforms into a massive dragon and falls into a deep slumber as he seals the demon gate. His friends hears the dragon's roar and rushes back to the gate only to find that it is too late for them to save Ryu from making the sacrifice; this causes emotional turmoil among his friends. If Ganer is alive, he prevents his son from becoming the sacrifice by crashing Township into the mountain holding the demon gate; this effectively seals the gate shut. Ganer then tells his son to spread his justice and philosophy throughout the world so that Deathevan may never rise to power again. Ryu and party returns home and is welcomed back by one of his friends. Love Interest Unlike the previous Breath of Fire, Ryu isn't limited to one love interest in this story. Katt and Nina are his possible options, though much of it is left in an inconspicuous state with only hints and implications throughout the story. Throughout the story, both Nina and Katt show signs of interest in Ryu. The level of depth to these signs are limited however; because of this, many fans will probably never see most of such dialogue. Katt's spunky and proud nature easily reveals more about how she feels toward Ryu. On the other hand, Nina's shy and distant personality can come off as she is simply uninterested in him. Despite the limited dialogues, both women are shown to become highly upset should Ryu sacrifice himself to become the next guardian of the demon gate; keep in mind that this only happens if the ladies are in the party used to defeat Deathevan. In one of the endings, if Nina or Katt wanders back to the gate to retrieve Ryu, their scene will trigger. If Nina happens to be the one looking for him, she suddenly becomes impulsive (contrary to her usual reserved and distant behavior) as her feelings escapes uncontrollably, causing her to reveal that next to her sister Mina, he is the most important person in her life. Whereas Katt resorts to becoming more rash to the sleeping Ryu as she tries waking him up. Field Abilities Ryu as tradition, has the ability to fish in various fishing spots in the world. Fishing is its own minigame where the player has to tap the action button to reel the fish in. Ryu also has the ability to pull up treasure chests or Manilo's he can shop with. In Battle Unknown to Ryu until later in the game, he has the ability to transform into powerful dragons. His transformations are among the most powerful abilities in the game. His combat abilities are strictly physical and he is one of the best fighters in the game. He has one of the highest attack levels, excellent defense, above average HP and a high critical/counterattack rate. His field ability is fishing, where he can acquire both fish to consume or trade as well as rare accessories on the ocean floor. He learns a very meager amount of magic in the game, limited to Cure 1, Cure 2, TimeWarp, and Smoke (though the player can teach him additional spells via a few one-time methods). Ryu's special battle skill is Guts, which allows him a chance to restore HP at no AP cost; the lower his health the more health is restored. Ryu is unable to take part in the Shaman system due to his dragon blood. Magic Ryu learns four spells in the game that are primarily healing or support. Dragon Transformation After Ryu fails the experiment with Shaman fusion, Ryu awakens his dragon power and can transform into a dragon to perform powerful attacks on enemies. He has seven dragon forms in the game, but only four of them are available through the story. The other three require a simple sidequest and the use of Jean's Big Frog field ability to acquire. The dragon transformations work very differently in this installment from the rest of the series. The dragon forms act more like special spells, with Ryu temporarily transforming into the dragon form to perform one attack and then changing back to his human form. Dragon forms also cost all of Ryu's available AP to cast and damage is calculated by the difference between his current AP and his Max AP, meaning that only when used at full AP does the dragon form do full damage. Anything less than full AP will have a dramatic difference on the damage the dragons will do. *Due to a programming bug, all three of the dragon forms do not cause elemental damage and are the exact same in everything except animation. Gallery Trivia *Unique to this Ryu is that he is the only Ryu in the series to have a full family and a last name. **His surname Bateson means "Son of Battle". *In the game's "sad" ending, Ryu transforms into Kaiser to protect the seal on Deathevan. *''Breath of Fire II'''s Ryu is the only one in the series to not have blue eyes. Instead, they are green. *Also, this Ryu is the only left-handed Ryu, as shown in his battle sprites, the rest are right-handed. *His blood-type is A. *In the manual for the SNES game, he is simply referred to as "The Hero," despite the game defaulting to "Ryu" for his name when no name is given when starting a new game. Category:Breath of Fire II Characters Category:Breath of Fire II Playable Characters Category:Breath of Fire II Protagonist Category:Breath of Fire II Brood